Joint attention strategies used by a preschool educator who is deaf

This exploratory study examined the attention-gaining and attention-regaining strategies used by a preschool educator who is Deaf during child-directed play. Four children (2 with typical hearing and 2 with severe-to-profound hearing loss) were videotaped interacting with the educator in two different play contexts. The educator used four different strategies to gain and to regain the children's attention: visual, visual using an American Sign Language (ASL) sign, tactile/vibratory, and observing/waiting. Overall, tactile and visual strategies were used with the same frequency and occurred more often than either waiting or using an ASL sign to establish joint attention. With the exception of waiting, all strategies were equally successful at gaining or regaining the children's attention. The knowledge and experience of educators with hearing loss potentially provide important insights into enhancing the effectiveness of the communicative environment for preschool children with hearing loss. The implications of this line of inquiry include training for educators on the effective use of strategies to establish joint attention with preschool children with hearing loss.     

Exploration of the contribution of teachers’ knowledge about reading to their students’ improvement in reading

Recent studies of elementary teachers’ knowledge about reading have been built on the premise that teachers need thorough knowledge about language and reading processes, but these studies have provided only limited evidence that teachers’ performance on tests of such knowledge contributes to their students’ reading achievement. The present study was designed to examine the contribution of first- through third-grade teachers’ knowledge about early reading to their students’ improvement on tests of word analysis and reading comprehension, controlling for socio-demographic characteristics of students, their prior reading achievement, and teachers’ educational attainment, professional experiences, and socio-demographic characteristics. Preliminary analyses indicated that the test of teachers’ knowledge had adequate psychometric characteristics. However, performance on this measure of teachers’ knowledge did not significantly explain students’ improvement on the two reading subtests. The complexity of the factors that influence teachers’ knowledge acquisition and the context in which the study was carried out offer possible explanations for these results. In addition, teachers’ content knowledge about reading might not be closely associated with the practices they use in reading instruction, and therefore might not be significantly related to their students’ improvement in reading over a year.

Artificial grammar learning in primary school children with and without developmental dyslexia

This paper explores implicit learning in typically developing and primary school children (9–12 years old) with developmental dyslexia using an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. Two experiments were conducted, which differed in time of presentation and nature of the instructional set (experiment 1—implicit instructions vs experiment 2—explicit instructions). Repeated measures analysis of variance (group × grammaticality × chunk strength) showed a group effect only in experiment 1 (implicit instructions), with only the typically developing children showing evidence of AGL. There was a grammaticality effect (adherence to the rules) for both groups in the two experimental situations. We suggest that the typically developing children exhibited intact implicit learning as manifested in AGL performance, whereas children with developmental dyslexia failed to provide such evidence due to possible mediating cognitive developmental factors.     

Using Stakeholder Input to Guide Cultural and Contextual Adaptations for a Universal School-Based Intervention

The Urban Review - Strong student–teacher relationships foster students’ social, emotional, and academic development, particularly for students from marginalized racial/ethnic groups....     

The tensions of preparing pre-service teachers to be assessment capable and profession-ready

There is both a growing appreciation of teacher assessment capability for the improvement of school student learning and achievement and a commensurate drive for graduates in Australian Initial Teacher Education institutions to demonstrate impact on school student learning as part of a national accreditation process. We argue in this article that if institutions are to prepare assessment capable graduates who are “profession-ready”, attention to practice architectures is warranted. Practice architectures are the features in schools that enable and/or constrain practice. Skills, knowledge and understandings do not just cleanly transfer across Initial Teacher Education institutions and practicum contexts into graduate teacher classrooms. Practitioner identities are produced through “relatings” within specific social-political arrangement, “doings” that constitute activities afforded in material-economic conditions, and “sayings” that are a dominating medium in cultural-discursive frameworks.     

The Emerging Market for On-line Learning: insights from the Corporate Sector

Over the past few years, many universities worldwide have begun delivering some of their courses on-line and new ones have emerged that offer only Internet-based courses. Many policy makers and managers question whether on-line learning is cost effective and wonder whether it is a direction they should pursue. This article is based on interviews with a number of for-profit on-line learning providers and market analysts and provides a summary of strategies that are being used by such companies to increase their likelihood of profitability.     

Creating cooperation and empowerment in a child care center

Staff turnover in child development centers is epidemic, reaching as high as 41% (Whitebook, Howes, & Phillips, 1989a). Studies have shown that high rates of turnover are related to poor-quality child care, having detrimental effects on children in child care facilities (Clarke-Stewart, 1987; Galinsky, 1990; Whitebook et al., 1982). Variables associated with high staff turnover are low wages, poor working conditions, and minimal benefits.Michael Havercamp and Joanne Everts are with the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Nevada Reno.